


Burn It Down

by zazie11



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Parallel Universe, Pete's World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 05:59:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zazie11/pseuds/zazie11
Summary: I wrote this oh so long ago, for a Doctor/Rose writing challenge over at Then There’s Us, on LJ. Remember LJ?My beta for this was the always magnificent Kilodalton.





	Burn It Down

_Tiger, tiger, burning bright_  
_In the forests of the night,_  
_What immortal hand or eye_  
_Could frame thy fearful symmetry?_

_In what distant deeps or skies_  
_Burnt the fire of thine eyes?_  
_On what wings dare he aspire?_  
_What the hand dare seize the fire?_

_~ William Blake_

  
\- - -

  
It’s nearly sunrise.

The Doctor is startled awake by a dream he can’t quite remember. His surging adrenaline is enough to send him hurtling out of bed, naked and shaking, to pace and press fingertips to the twilight-stained walls. He slides an index finger down the seam where two of the walls meet, testing its resiliency.

In dreams, he always feels cornered.

Rose is asleep. Her left leg and left arm are drawn snugly in and tucked under her body, while her opposite limbs are flung out, free of her. Half-fetal, half-feral: The beautiful contradiction of Rose Tyler makes him want to weep, and not for the first time.

He sits down in the armchair opposite their bed to watch Rose sleep, in an attempt to steady himself. White-knuckled grip on his bare thighs, he counts the seconds that hover in the space between the rise and fall of her ribcage. A blonde halo splays across her pillow. When Rose snuffles quietly, the Doctor feels his hackles drop and his grip go slack.

 _He needs you_ , his other self had told her, words and sand stinging her eyes.

If the Doctor had enough air in his lungs, he would shout now at the understatement of those words. He would scream loud enough for a fool to hear him in another universe.

Instead, he synchronizes his breathing pattern with hers, slow and deep, until he no longer has to consciously try.

When he had two hearts, he could not - would not - allow himself to want. Tried as often as possible, in fact, to tamp down that part of him that wants, that needs. The need to take what he loves and burn it down, until there is nothing but ash.

Rose is his phoenix.

How many times has he destroyed them both? At this point, the Doctor has lost count.

 _Still she rises_.

One heart now and this half-human body needs so much.

Rose makes him _want_.

The Doctor wants Rose with an intensity that overwhelms him at times. His body is a match, ready to strike.

 _Burn with me_ , he pleads darkly. His jutting hipbones ignite against hers and she is so alive - the pop and crackle of Rose Tyler snaps his senses like kindling. He wants to singe his lips tasting her. Burn his fingertips tangling them in her hair.

The Doctor wants to dance on the pyre with Rose, heads thrown back, until they are nothing but dust. More, until they are nothing but smoke: the sooty breath of lovers, lifting on the wind to carry them back to the beginning and start it all again.

_Still she rises._

When Rose comes, a wolf’s howl into his mouth, she tastes like absolution and he can’t get enough — will never get enough — of her. Rose is the cleansing fire that cauterizes the wound of one lost heart. She is the balm that heals him.

_I believe in her._

Sunlight streams in through the windowpane and fractures against rumpled 400 thread count.

Rose begins to stir, uncurling herself.

The Doctor knows he should get up and close the curtains, let her sleep. He knows, but doesn’t move. Instead, he sits, transfixed, as the morning sun slowly engulfs their bed.

He concentrates on the sunlight as it creeps up the bed and the slumbering woman within it, a fraction of a centimeter at a time. The Doctor's eyes follow the trail as the slant of light changes - climbing the hills of Rose’s calves, brushing the backs of her thighs, her buttocks. Caressing the curve of her spine. The light continues to travel the contours of Rose’s prone form as if it is seeking out her face.

By the time the ray finds Rose’s shoulders, she is beginning to wake in earnest. The Doctor’s heart clutches as he sees her reach out for him. Eyes still closed, Rose searches his side of the bed with her hand, fingers spread wide against too cool sheets in the empty space where his body should be. Feeling him missing, she pulls herself up, stretches and locates him across the room through half-lidded eyes.

Sitting up into the sunbeam, her golden hair is lit like fire.

 _Burn with me_ , she beckons, her soft mouth a drowsy smile. She spreads her arms wide to take him into her span.

The Doctor collapses into the heat of a bed-warmed Rose. It feels like being reborn.

_Still she rises._

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this oh so long ago, for a Doctor/Rose writing challenge over at Then There’s Us, on LJ. Remember LJ?
> 
> My beta for this was the always magnificent Kilodalton.


End file.
